


Private Study

by Camelittle



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Poetry, Fluff and Humor, Libraries, Love Potion/Spell, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 08:12:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18961336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camelittle/pseuds/Camelittle
Summary: In which, when Merlin is researching ways to cure Arthur of a pesky love potion, he stumbles across some top secret volumes in Geoffrey of Monmouth's private library.





	Private Study

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Clea2011](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clea2011/gifts), [Tari_Sue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tari_Sue/gifts), [LFB72](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LFB72/gifts).



> I’m not sure who first made me realise that Geoffrey of Monmouth's secret _alter ego_ is Bullet Baxter from Grange Hill, and speculated about the possibility that old Geoffers probably has a private porn stash in his library, but whoever you are (*cough* Clea *cough* Wasp *cough* LFB) this is for you.

Merlin hurtled down the steps, boots clattering on stone. He took a brief glance over his shoulder. A shadow appeared on the stair-well, only a few paces behind.

“All right, you lot, come on!” came Geoffrey's throaty roar. There was no time to lose. "Useless, the lot of you! Thieves! Scoundrels! Sorcerers!" He was hot on Merlin's tail. "I'll get you, you little bastard!" 

Merlin scampered as fast as he could. His disguise as Geoffrey's arch-nemesis, Jenkin the stable boy, had already begun to wear off. Grasping the heavy bunch of Geoffrey’s keys, Merlin took the final five steps in one great leap, landing in an inelegant sprawl. Springing back to his feet, he spun round a corner and into an alcove. He conjured a shade, which carried on down the narrow passageway as he sank back into the gloom.

“Come back here you tricky little bugger!” With a surprising turn of speed for one of his venerable age, Geoffrey sprinted off after Merlin’s illusion, passing Merlin's alcove without a backward glance. A handful of panting guards clattered along in his wake, weighed down by their armour. "I'll give you keys!"

Merlin leaned against the wall, chest heaving. That had been a close call. As soon as the sound of retreating footsteps and clanking armour stopped, he peered cautiously out of the alcove, peering both ways before darting back up the stairs the way he came.

Back to the library.

There was no time to lose. This latest love spell had hit Arthur like a sledgehammer. As far as Merlin knew, Arthur was still currently locked in his bedroom, composing clumsy lines of poetry under Percival and Leon’s watchful gaze, while Gwen tended Lady Henrietta, under strict instructions not to let the sly bint (Gwaine’s words, not Merlin’s) leave the tower where her chambers were located.

Luckily, finding a suitable rhyme for the word Henrietta would keep Arthur employed for a while. Merlin had left him frowning and chewing on his quill as he muttered “O’ Henrietta, ’ere I met ’er, sent her a letter, hope she gets better, don’t want a vendetta… no, no, not vendetta. What's another word for _beautiful_ that rhymes with _etta_?” But it would not take long for him to tire of his efforts and adopt a more direct approach to wooing the conniving trollop (Morgana’s words, not Merlin’s).

Gaius had directed Merlin to look for Geoffrey’s well-disguised _magical books_ section, which would be behind a secret door, disguised as another wall of hefty tomes. There would be a lock somewhere, probably behind the most boring book Geoffrey could find.

“ _Befinde rúncofa_!” Holding his hand up, Merlin sent out a beam of light that roamed around the shelves, probing for secrets. He was quite proud of the spell, having made it up himself. 

Following this beam, he fumbled behind a thick, leathery volume of rules for ancient Roman ball games, and his fingertips slid over a keyhole. Yes! He had found it. Thrilled with this easy success, Merlin tried one key after another. The ring he had stolen from Geoffrey contained a huge assortment of keys. It jangled noisily. Several were too large for the hole, and one just jiggled, but finally he selected one that seemed to fit. However, the lock would not budge.

Sighing, Merlin sent another dart of magic into the keyhole, conscious that time was running out. How long would it take Arthur to decide to get rid of his attendants and run off to declaim nonsense outside that minx’s door? He gave himself five minutes, at most.

Finally, there was a begrudging click from the mechanism, and the key started to turn. This was it. Geoffrey’s secret magical book stack. Anticipation made Merlin’s mouth go dry as he pushed at the shelf. The whole section of wall rotated on its axis, giving him entry to the room, and closing behind him.

“ _Leohte!_ ” he whispered into the darkness, holding out a trembling hand. The light sprang into his hand, illuminating a wall lined in dusty book after dusty book. Oh, how he longed to browse the shelves full of treasures! How many secrets must be hidden here, far from Uther’s prying eyes?

Vowing to come back one day, Merlin felt down the spine of one leather tome before extracting it with as much reverence as he could muster, given the pressing circumstances. Opening the book, he scanned it for magic. But nothing leapt out at him. He rifled through it, picking out words here and there. Strange. There were some pictures, later in the volume, that caught his eye - images of men and women in twos or threes, free of all clothing… what were they doing? He squinted and made the light a bit brighter. They were playing sports or something or maybe… he flipped a page… oh! Not sports, then. Not unless all sports involved considerable nudity and entanglement of limbs.

Face flaming, Merlin closed the book with a snap, replacing it on the shelf, picking out another one at random. But this one, dispensing with words altogether, merely contained a vast encyclopedia of crudely drawn naked people, in various combinations of numbers, genders and stages of undress, conducting themselves in a variety of lewd, awkward and, in some cases, anatomically unfeasible ways.

His mouth dropping open, Merlin examined shelf after shelf of material, discovering nothing magical. One particular volume, devoted solely to startling depictions of the male anatomy, absorbed his interest for several minutes before he stuffed it into his bag, resolving to undertake some private study once the immediate crisis had past and return it secretly before Geoffrey noticed it had gone.

But the time ticked away without yielding so much as a minor spell to alleviate the effects of love potions.

Eventually, Merlin decided to give up. He would just have to resort to the time-honoured tactic of bashing Arthur over the head, making him lose consciousness until the spell wore off. That should do the trick.

As he pushed at the rotating door, his mind was so busy working on a plausible excuse to give Gaius for his failure  that he did not notice that he was not alone until it was too late.

He swiveled on his heels, clutching at the satchel containing the interesting volume for later examination, and found himself face to face with a glowering Arthur. He let out a small, embarrassing sound that was horribly close to something an escaping rodent might make in the same situation.

“Merlin!” Arthur’s brow furrowed. “What are you doing here? And what have you got in there?” He waved at Merlin’s bag.

“Um.” Merlin swallowed. Faced with the extreme proximity of Arthur’s unfairly chiselled jawline, juxtaposed with explaining what he had just seen and the contents of his bag, his brain just sort of fizzled and went blank, while at the same time other parts of his anatomy started to do annoying things that mimicked some of the pictures he’d just seen in Geoffrey’s private collection. “I could ask you the same thing, sire,” he says, buying for time.

“You could,” growled Arthur. “But I am the crown prince, whereas last time I looked, you…” Arthur’s eyes raked Merlin’s slender body, the appraisal making him shiver. “You are just an underfed, irritating manservant with nothing but a propensity for opening his big mouth and putting his foot in it. And, I might add, fluff between his ears. Besides which, I asked first.”

“Um. I was looking for something. A book. Sire.”

“Well, duh!” Arthur rolled his eyes, at the same time gesturing to the array of book-lined shelves that loomed over them. “And what, pray, did you find, in Geoffrey’s top secret inner library chamber?”

“Nothing!”

“Let me see.” Without even asking, the prat dived for Merlin’s satchel.

“That’s private!” squeaked Merlin, trying to pull the bag away.

“So I see!” said Arthur, eyes widening as he perused the contents of the book. “Good heavens, Merlin. What on earth…” his voice tailed off and he turned a page. “Good heavens!” he repeated, rotating his head to peer sideways at a particularly intriguing illustration.

“It’s um…” Casting about for something, anything that wouldn’t result in his head being chopped off by the potion-addled prince, Merlin said the first thing that popped into his mind. “Research.”

“Research?”

“Hmm.” Merlin nodded, warming to the theme. “Gaius wanted to know about ancient Greek… erm… practices... obviously not for any reason other than purely scientific… um…”

“You’re going to show _this book_ …” Jabbing on finger at the still-open tome, Arthur lowered his voice to a dangerous whisper. “To… _Gaius_?”

“Um, well, maybe not this precise one…” Merlin grabbed it back off Arthur and squirreled it away into the safety of his satchel. “It’s… er… one of many different lines of enquiry.”

“So this is more for, shall we call it…” The edges of Arthur’s mouth turned up and his eyes roamed around Merlin’s spare frame as if they were on a hunting expedition, before settling on Merlin’s neck and flicking back to Merlin’s lips. “Private study?”

“If you like.” Disconcerted by the attention, and not sure where Arthur was going with this, Merlin started to edge away, but found his escape abruptly cut off when Arthur grabbed his arm and tugged him closer.

“And how many other… books… yes let’s call them that. _Books_ ,” purred Arthur. “Have you studied in there?” Arthur waved at the the still-open inner chamber. “ _In private_.”

“Why are you so interested?” Merlin licked his lips, a faint, hopeful suspicion creeping into his heart as Arthur watched the movement with eyes that were hooded and hawklike. “What do you want to know?”

“I’m not sure,” Arthur admitted as he tugged at Merlin’s wrist, pulling him in until their faces were separated by barely a few inches, and Merlin could smell the sweet honeyed wine on Arthur’s breath. “All I know is that I came into the library looking for a dictionary for some reason, and now I have found something else, something far more interesting than stupid rhymes for Henrietta.”

“Oh, thank God,” said Merlin. The spell must have finally worn off. Relief made his legs feel wobbly. Relief, and the attentions of a handsome prat whose breath tickled at his ears and sent inappropriate thoughts swooping down Merlin's spine, into his gut, and swirling past his balls to his cock. “I thought the evil, manipulative little wench was going to seduce you.”

“Such unchivalrous language, Merlin,” chided Arthur.

“Those were Gwen’s words, not mine! And anyway, _she,_ the wench I mean, not Gwen…”

“You mean Lady Henrietta," Arthur corrected. “Jealousy becomes you, Merlin, but you must not forget your manners.”

“Yeah, whatever. Lady Whatserface.” Merlin pursed his lips and bit back the word he'd originally intended to use. “She told Gwen herself that her plan was to get pregnant, and then force you to marry her.” He couldn't help pouting just a little. 

“Would that have been so bad?” Arthur edged Merlin up against the bookshelves, using his bulk to pinion Merlin with one hand on each side of his face. “Merlin.”

“Yes,” admitted Merlin, so far gone that he didn’t see any point in denying it. Besides which, he didn’t think he had it in him to lie. Not right now, anyway. Not with Arthur’s body hot and hard up against his, pressing into him in all the right places.

“Why?” Arthur tilted his head. Their lips brushed together, making Merlin moan out loud.

“Because I love you. You may be a prat. But you're _my_ prat. As well you know.”

Angling his head the other way, Merlin closed his eyes and darted forward to capture Arthur’s lips with his own, groaning as Arthur’s lips parted in sweet surrender. After a while, Merlin was not sure how long, they broke apart. Arthur’s smile was like the breaking of dawn after a long night.

“I’ve been so worried,” whispered Merlin catching at the edge of Arthur’s still-smiling mouth with one thumb. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“Never.” Arthur leaned into his caress. “You would have kidnapped me with your magic, and kept me captive until I submitted to your evil demands.”

“I would," said Merlin. “I still might, to be honest.”

“Saucy sorcerer.” Arthur hauled at him. “Come on. Back to my chambers.”

“What did your last slave die of?” grumbled Merlin. 

“What did you say?” Pausing at the top of the steps, Arthur frowned down at him.

“I said, _at once, sire!_ ” lied Merlin, with the brightest smile he could muster. The one that Arthur always said made him look like a demented sycophant. But the soppy sort of half-smiling growl that Arthur always bore when he said things like that meant something different entirely. Arthur’s secret language of love was more expressive than any poetry, to those lucky few who had learned to read it.

Grinning, Merlin hastened along in Arthur’s wake, finally catching him in a distant corridor _en route_ to Arthur’s chambers, where they bumped shoulders, jostling for position like two schoolboys. A sudden thought struck Merlin, and he laughed out loud.

“What's so funny?” said Arthur, suspicion driving a deep furrow between his brows.

“Geoffrey,” Merlin said. “You should have seen what else was in the room.”

Arthur shuddered before barking out a laugh in reply. “Dear God, no. I wonder if he’ll realise that book is missing?”

“Do you think he’ll ever say anything?” They were reaching Arthur’s chambers now. “Shall I take it back?”

“Best not. In fact…” Arthur paused outside to dismiss the guards before beckoning Merlin in. “You might as well bring it in with you. For private study.”

So Merlin did, nearly tripping over his feet in his haste.

 

***END***

 


End file.
